You Pay Peanuts You Get a Monkey

Last Updated on Thursday, 13 September 2018 19:180 Comments

That is a phrase my former partner used years ago when he set a fee and the potential client said he or she knew a cheaper lawyer. I started writing this a couple months ago but thought I would finish it today. The particular case that generates this was an Ex Parte involving an allegation of Child Abuse. The mother filed it in Somerset County as that is where it allegedly occurred. The mother lives in Howard County. The judge found no abuse and dismissed the Petition. The statute allows ONLY for an appeal to be filed in the County where the original Petition was heard. You cannot file a valid new Petition elsewhere, only Somerset County has jurisdiction- it is in black and white in the statute. The mother files a NEW Petition in the Circuit Court for Somerset County and it is heard and Dismissed by the trail judge as only an Appeal is allowed. The mother then files an Appeal. The Appeal will the be heard in Circuit Court, unless you have paid peanuts.

The mother now files a new Petition in Howard County. The mother also hires a lawyer in Howard County. Instead of dismissing the improperly filed Howard County Petition (that is virtually verbatim of the Somerset County Petition) and taking his lazy ass to Somerset County to try the Appeal which is de novo ( meaning a new trial), he dismisses the Somerset County Appeal. I emailed the lawyer the night before and explained the law to him and he emails back stating he did not need me to educate him. Apparently he did. I wanted to save my people from driving all the way from Somerset to Ellicott City. We show up and the judge dismisses the Howard County petition because she has no jurisdiction to hear it- jurisdiction is in Somerset County for the Appeal only that he dismissed!

It gets worse, we walk out of courtroom and try to make arrangements for the return of the child, and the lawyer says he is filing a NEW PETITION based on newly discovered evidence. Well we come back a week later and not only is there no newly discovered evidence, the evidence he claims he had was bizarre and unbelievable. Before I could move for dismissal, he does. All he had to do was go to Somerset County and he could have retried the Appeal with the original evidence and anything else he thought he might have. My guess is he did not want to drive there. He is one of the low fee advertising lawyers. I took him to task years ago for not doing his own work and relying on the list serve to save his clients. He even called me at home incredulous that I had given him a public spanking. He deserved it then and deserves it now, but I will not use his name. Just remember my former partner's admonition.

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